1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mounting systems for road vehicle steering gears, particularly of the rack and pinion type.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A rack and pinion type steering gear includes a pinion adapted to be rotated by a manually operated steering wheel, a rack gear meshed with the pinion for lateral reciprocating motion and connected through side rods or tie rods to steerable vehicle wheels, and a gear housing accommodating movably therein the pinion and the rack and mounted on a vehicle chassis member such as for example a front suspension cross member through rubber insulators.
The insulators are desired to be less resilient or more rigid for making the steering gear more responsive and capable of giving a driver a feeling of "sharp" steering under vehicle low-speed running conditions. On the contrary, the insulators are desired to be more resilient or less rigid for damping of shocks caused by irregularities in the road surface and for making the steering gear less responsive under vehicle high-speed running conditions.
Such a dilemma is encountered in the prior art steering gear mounting. Various effors have been made to solve this problem but in vain.